“Wisdom rideth with the ones that know no fear”
Scotland. What do you know. Never been there before. The land of castles, groundskeeper Willie and epic highlands. Off for a week of iceclimbing with my buddy Rhys Jones (my guide on Kili), Bonita Norris and Chris Slater. Rhys climbed every continental summit at the age of 20, Bonita climbed Everest in 2010 to become the youngest British female ever to top the highest mountain in the world and Chris is just the king navigation. The least I could say, that I felt like a total mountain dummy here.
The journey to Scotland started off at Brussels Airport, after 2 planes I arrived in Aberdeen. From the airplane, the city center didn’t look too far away from the airport, so I decided to walk it. With a 20kg backpa
ck 10km feel longer than they are. After more than two hours I arrived at my hotel. But it was a nice walk. The hotel looked like a bordello from the outside, but looks are deceiving. This was one of the nicest budget hotelrooms I had so far, and the funny thing was…..there was nobody else in the hotel. Great. Dropped of my gear and headed to the sea. Looking for the lighthouse I saw from the airplane. Again a 2 hour walk. But all good. Abderdeen, you don’t have to go there for its looks but the views are amazing.
Next day, a last jump in my enormous bad tub and off to the trainstation. I don’t even remember how long I was on the train, but thank Apple for Ipod. It is pretty epic when you look at the landscape and Nemesis Divina is raging through your earphones.
No time to rest, because this was the Rhys Jones advanced school of climbing. Getting up every day around 6:30am and go to sleep around 11pm, but never without watching a chapter of the Wonders of the Solar System. Did you know, in 5 million years, the earth is not going to be there anymore ?
Iceclimbing is different than rockclimbing. Unlike the fact you almost never climb with a top-rope, all the clothes and equipment you have on you, give a distorted feeling of safety. This is dangerous when you are doing things wrong. I have never heard of deadmans, bucketseats and buried ice-axe belays before, but now I master them all.
Day 4, NYE and ready to do a solid 140m climb. Earlier that day, I was joking I didn’t want to spend 2010/2011 in the snow. Well…of course these are the best stories to tell, but things could have gone slightly different not in our favour that day. The climb took us 5 pitches, in 5 hours. I lead 2 pitches. The belay switching took forever. Way too long. We were at the top around 3:30pm. In half an hour, the darkenss would start to fall. 
It was icecold, the Goat Track was too dangerous to go off in this weather so we had to go all the way round. Visibility zero, we stayed close together. It was starting to get dark, colder and the wind was raging. I was already thinking we might get the emergency shelter out. We still don’t know exactly why, but the compass sent us the whole wrong way. 6pm, and still in the cold. There goes my NYE evening in front of the fireplace. I was really getting worried when the forever patient and focussed Rhys shouted: “Fuck, I don’t know where we are!”. So ok, where is the emergency shelter ? We decided to go follow old footprints in the dark and our common sense. And finally, there it was, the light from the ski-station. Only half an hour more down to the car and safety. I would become a quite and peaceful evening, curry and log for dessert.
I ended the week in beauty and climbed a Grade III route with Rhys. A nice 140 climb in 2 pitches (well 2,5 to be honest). Climbing is awesome. But more than running ? I don’t know.
But I feel definitely like running now.
